Demons fined $500,000 but won't fight AFL

Sam Lienert

Melbourne have been spared draft penalties and technically cleared of tanking while the AFL have avoided a costly and drawn-out legal fight.

But the Demons were on Tuesday fined $500,000, the third-largest fine in AFL history.

Then-football manager Chris Connolly and then-coach Dean Bailey were both suspended as a seven-month investigation of the club's actions late in the 2009 season was finally resolved.

While no one at the club was found to have deliberately lost matches for draft picks, Connolly and Bailey were both found to have acted in a manner "prejudicial to the interests of the AFL".

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Connolly, now in a marketing job with the Demons, was banned from serving any role at any AFL club until February next year.

Bailey, now an assistant coach with Adelaide, has been suspended for the first 16 rounds of the coming season.

That adds another blow to a horror off-season for Adelaide.

The Crows were already without chief executive Steven Trigg, suspended until July, and football manager Phil Harper, suspended until March over the Kurt Tippett saga, which also cost them draft picks and a $300,000 fine.

Connolly and Bailey will both remain employed by their clubs.

The Crows will continue paying Bailey during his suspension and the Demons will consider doing the same for Connolly.

The finding against the Demons centred on a comment Connolly made in a 2009 football department meeting regarding the team's performance and the desire to secure a priority pick.

While there have been suggestions the comment was light-hearted, AFL acting general manager of football operations Gillon McLachlan said Connolly now accepted that it was stupid of him to say it and that people in the room took him seriously.

That included Bailey.

"He (Bailey) felt pressured after that meeting and made decisions to appease ultimately Chris and made decisions around resting players and around positional selections of players," McLachlan said.

But McLachlan said there was no evidence that Bailey didn't coach to win on game days, that players didn't give their all or that club officials had issued any directive to lose games, so the Demons were not charged with tanking.

Demons president Don McLardy said while the club were unhappy with aspects of the process and outcome, they wouldn't fight it.

"A legal avenue is the last resort, not the first resort," he said.

"We sought to discuss openly with the AFL the situation and we feel that this is a resolution that we can accept."

He said the fact the Demons could play their first pre-season match on Friday night with the issue resolved was a big consideration.

"We need clear air," McLardy said.

But while McLachlan said the AFL had drawn a "line in the sand" by creating a beefed-up integrity department, McLardy said clubs were none the wiser as to what separated experimentation from tanking.

"Nobody has got clear-cut ideas about tanking and what it means," McLardy said.

"But I still respect the AFL's right to protect the integrity of the game."